Monday, January 6, 2014

Wolf Down: 6 Ways To Improve The Wolf of Wall Street

A funny thing happened after I
filed my 3 star review of The Wolf of
Wall Street. I found myself aligning more and more with the people who
didn’t like the film. It’s not that I don’t think The Wolf of Wall Street is a piece of bravura filmmaking—in fact,
that’s almost all I think it is:
virtuoso technique serving an unworthy story. What’s more, I’m turned off by
the film’s defenders, who seem to think that if you didn’t love The Wolf of Wall Street as much as they
did, you’re either shallow, puritanical, missing the satire chip, or expect
neat moral resolutions in all your art. I don’t expect neat moral resolutions,
but I do think films need to have some sort
of moral compass. And yes, I understand that The
Wolf of Wall Street is unique because it’s told solely from the
(unreliable) narration of a braggart and a sociopath. But…so what? As I’ve said
many times on Twitter (@maxthegirl), what did we learn about the specific sociopathy
of Jordan Belfort? What new thing did we learn about Wall Street, about greed,
about excess? Nothing, as far as I saw. So, understanding the audacity of what
I’m about to put forward (Scorsese is arguably our greatest living filmmaker—I
can’t even get my reviews on Rotten Tomatoes), here are my suggestion for 6 ways
The Wolf of Wall Street could’ve been
better.

1.Give
Jordan a more interesting backstory (or, for that matter, any interior life at
all). Was he bullied as a kid? Is he a closeted homosexual? Did his father
tell him he’d amount to nothing? Did he witness his father’s humiliation at the
hand of a wealthy neighbor or boss? Does he have a small penis? (Just kidding.
Of course he has a small penis.) Give
me something specific that tells me
what made this character tick and why he made the choices he did. Then, if
nothing else, The Wolf of Wall Street
would work as a character study.

2.Focus
more on Kyle Chandler’s federal agent. This was a technique that Steven
Spielberg employed, quite winningly, in Catch
Me if You Can. The DiCaprio character (again!) in that film was fun,
charming, rascally—we enjoyed being in his presence. Tom Hanks’ Carl Hanratty, on
the other hand, was grinding his way through a joyless, bureaucratic life,
committed to doing the right thing, no
matter how thankless it may have been. The contrast between the “dullness of
decency,” if you will, and the charisma of DiCaprio’s glamorous conman created
an interesting prism through which to view the film and assess our own moral judgments.
Scorsese hints at that, especially in one of the later scenes, when we see
Chandler’s agent riding home on the subway, but never really goes there.

3.Have a
dissenting character within Jordan’s ranks. I realize that The Wolf of Wall Street is based on
Jordan’s memoirs and, by all accounts, there was no such character. But “based
on a true story” leaves wiggle room. What if Jordan had an friend/employee who
questioned the excess, the corruption, the greed? Anyone in his midst to serve
as some sort of voice of humanity, to ask Jordan when will it ever be enough? Everyone
in this movie blithely goes along with him. No one quits. Not one person says,
“I can’t live like this.”

4.Give Jordan
himself some sort of existential crisis. I just finished watching Harmony
Korine’s hypnotic Spring Breakers, so
maybe I’m unduly influenced by it, but there were several moments in that film
where, in the midst of the bacchanal, the camera gets in close on the revelers
and we see their…dread. The parties in that film leave a sickening aftertaste
and not just because we judge the characters harshly—rather because their own
self-loathing is the ever-present but never mentioned party guest.

5.Show us the victims! It’s actually
stunning that we never really see the consequences of Jordan’s actions. We
never see the poor patsies he robbed blind. We see his first wife, in one angry
moment on the sidewalk, when he replaces her for a younger, prettier model. But
we don’t stay with her. We see Jordan’s second wife, who is certainly a victim
of his abuse (in one scene, he actually rapes her), but, like all the
characters in the film, has virtually no interior life—and, in fact, is seen as
a social grasper and clear-eyed accomplice. (If Scorsese really cares about her
pain, he has a curious way of showing it.) We see the face of a woman who works
for Jordan, when in a gleeful hazing ritual her head is shaved by her coworkers.
That is one of the rare moments in the film where Scorsese focuses on the
perspective of someone who is not having fun yet, who has been victimized by
this misogynistic frathouse-on-steroids, and can’t escape. The horror on her face speaks volumes. And again, it’s gone in a flash.

6.Tell us something about Wall Street we
don’t already know. I’ve seen lots of movies about Wall Street and cold-call
salesmen: Both of Oliver Stones films, The
Boiler Room, Margin Call, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Company Men, Too Big To Fail
(a documentary), etc. Each of those films told me something interesting and new
either about the machinations of Wall Street or about the specific
mentality/technique of a salesman. Jordan has a few clever ideas up his
sleeve—creating a phony silk stocking firm is one of them—but beyond that, the
film was much more interested in what he did with his fortune than how he made
it.

I can already hear people reacting to this column with: Why
not add puppies! There were no puppies in the film either! (Or some other
equally snide thing. Trust me, this is how these The Wolf of Wall Street lovers talk.) What I’m saying, again, is
that for me to find the film not just good, but great, I needed a moment to
reflect over, that allowed me to lie in bed at night, chewing over the film’s
content, thinking of the world (or art, for that matter) in a new way. The Wolf of Wall Street basically said: People
are exactly as horrible as you think they are. Here, allow me to beat you over the head
with that fact.

1 comment:

Max, I always enjoy your reviews and find your writing to be interesting and provocative....I too, have, changed my opinion of a picture after further reflection, so you have done just as I have for nearly 6 decades of moviegoing....Why shouldn't we be able to rethink a movie after our initial reaction? Keep it up, kiddo.Russ Margo

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About Me

Hi, I'm Max Weiss. You might know me from WBAL radio or WBAL TV. Maybe you know me from my days on Max and Mike on the Movies or as managing editor of Baltimore magazine. Maybe you don't know me at all—and prefer it that way. This blog will be sort of a clearing house of movie reviews, pop culture musings, deep thoughts, and reality TV recaps. Oh and pictures of my dog. Lots and lots of pictures of my dog.